I’m a recent victim of Credit Card Crime. I’m actually kind of amused/intrigued by it.
My Visa was used by criminals to send ~$75 to “Digital Star” in the UK. Fraudulent charges appeared first after Feb. 3. Check your Visa, doesn’t matter which bank.
The charges were made by phone or Internet, Visa rep couldn’t distinguish! He suggested I phone Digital Star in the UK to first confirm I hadn’t dealt with them, although I was pretty sure I hadn’t made any ticket purchases in the UK, since I didn’t plan on going there anytime soon.
I’m not overly worried that my computer is compromised (cross my legs, hope to fly), and figure a business got hacked. Now I need to figure out everywhere online I have recurring payments set up, and add the new number. That’s a 10 day wait, and that’s the only downside to this, since I won’t have to pay the $150 missing from my credit.
UPDATE March 31, 2012
Ok, tonight CTV News reported Global Payments was breached, and up to 10 million cards could be compromised. The charges would have been in Jan. And Feb. I think we just learned what did this to us.
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff 
Hi SaskBoy — you’re not alone getting hit by this fraud, check out this thread:
http://complaintwire.org/complaint/ubMBAAAAAAA/digital-star
Glad your bank reversed the charges.
Beth
Me too Beth, but I have to wait a bit for them to confirm it officially.
In the meantime, I don’t have to pay for the charges.
I had the link already in my article ;-)
I got hit too. There’s a lot of crap coming out of the UK. A lot of them are imigrating here too. Notice how the english accent is everywhere and obnoxious.
I understand you’re mad, but Visa should refund you. I don’t appreciate the anti-British sentiment either, it’s rude at best.
I am not amused like you. I think these scammers should be executed.
I got hit, also, on 1/31/2012. A charge of 74.95 was charged to my account and the visa rep couldn’t confirm where it came from. Visa Card reversed the charge and hope they figure out that it’s a scam. How it got there, I’m not sure. I think it comes from facebook, because they have all these ads flashing around and it’s easy to click on something that you don’t want.
We all must have something in common for this to happen, but what? I’m Canadian, are you in Canada or States? My best hunch at this point is that it’s a vendor who got hacked, since my computer is probably virus free (I don’t install viruses, am a non practicing computer scientist, and don’t think all of our card details were skimmed in person {although a crime network could have had a list of stolen cards from skimming in many places}).
I also got hit, only it was United States Dollar for 2 charges after Feb. 3 for a total of $153.00. I am in New Brunswick, Canada.
Chalk up another one in Canada. I got hit and RBC as made it right. I suspect that saskboy is correct about a skimming – probably a Canadian vendor.
Here is another one for you, from Montreal. The bank can trace it, but the money is not recoverable. The source is supposed in Denmark. That’s all the news I got.
sorry – won’t leave an email address
Count me in. I’m in the US and the charge is on my business card. It is also a VISA and the bogus charge was $498.99. The charge was made 2/2/12. I’ve just started the dispute process so don’t know how it will turn out. I had to close my card and get a new one though which is kind of a pain.
U.S. too, busines Visa card, I don’t use facebook – bank caught the fraud along with a few other European originating fraudulent charges all in early to mid February.
U.S. My Master Card got hit by Digital Star For $148.00 2/5/12 by this Scam hope they all get caught and punish and pay back every Dollar stole .
GREY: I also got hit by digital star,feb03/12 &feb19/12&21/12. on my visa ont. nothings like real money,except gold it will always be worth something and they have to pull it out of my dead hands & good luck with trying that.We will get our money back.
i got charge twice in feb for over 150 dollars. Visa said that it is charging out of Great Britain. Watch out!!!!!
I’m here in Texas, my Visa got hit by Digital Star out of the UK apparently, two charges of $74.95 each, one in Jan and one in Feb of ’12. My bank caught the fraud before I did. The bank reversed the charges and began a fraud investigation.
Got my replacement card today, on Pi Day, yay!
I asked Visa if they’d tracked where the number leak came from and they had no specifics, and said they wouldn’t tell me anyway in case the business or place that leaked it was a victim of theft!
The Winners leak years ago must have been put into the media by law enforcement or a clever reporter. If we don’t get that break, we may never know what happened to cause these criminals to have access to our credit cards.
hornblower @Indefatigabl_
@saskboy btdt w/ my mastercard in Feb. Twice. Finally they gave me a new card.
GREY I never used my visa card for anything,plus it was a new replacment card as my old card was misplaced in my own residence that no one but no one could of had acess to. my new card. the only thing I used my old card was to pay my once a year cell phone company. so if I never used my card, how could any team know my card no. my expiiry date the pass no.& my full name????. So to all you parinod people I think I could not make it clearer that its not comming from many of your thougts.I only can think of one, think about it, as I dont use my last new card, not the latest after this scam ………….
Was that paid in person at a store, or online?
Grey was phoned in on a hard line phone call to my cell company one a year.hope this will help some of you out.
If that’s the one time your card has ever been used, that raises some interesting questions about where this breech actually took place!
I saw someone mention a Mstercard was affected too, so it wouldn’t have been Visa (alone) hacked.
Are you in the US or Canada, and mind sharing the cell company name?
feb 17 montreal same thing re Digital star 74.95 USD.
Well, this is weird. I’m in Alaska and my visa was hit in March and in April for 74.95 to digital star. Strange thing is, I received a generic notice from my credit card company last week saying that information from a vendor had been compromised and so they re-issued me “and a bunch of other people” a new replacement card. The problem is, the charge in March was on the “compromised” card and the charge in April is on the “new” re-issued card!!! Right after I notified all of my monthly bills of my new number…now it looks like I’m going to have to do it all over again!!!! Definitely NOT a happy camper!
You said April, but we’re not there yet.
I meant my bill is due April 9th. The charges were actually made in Feb and March. Sorry about that. ;)
GREY first thing sorry for some of my spelling errors;need to use glasses more often; Now to get to some points,I live in Canada,my cell is rogers.I just got my new card alright.. I had to call vis. on my hard line phone to reactivate my new card,just like my old replacement card before.Now when I called cib-. vi-a.today to activate my card,then I called to renew my cell phone on my hard line,they told me that my card was not activated yet,so I recalled v-sa,to make sure it was activated then made sure it was with cell company and it was.but threw these calls my complete card info except my pin was given.now has anyone recived any forms from their card company to fill out about the digital star to say we are not responsable for ordering these tickets from digital star????
Ok, tonight CTV News reported Global Payments was breached, and up to 10million cards could be compromised. The charges would have been in Jan. and Feb. I think we just learned what did this to us.
Im glad to know I am not the only victim but it makes me mad and the bank cannot do anything about it. The hacker got my debit card number. After that one transaction that amounted to $151, I had multiple ones from global link for pre-paid card. I am seriously thinking of closing my bank
account.
That is crooked of your bank to not insure that loss due to an obvious organized fraud. I suggest contacting your local media and showing them this blog post, if your bank does not come around quickly.
In the future, never use online debit card payments, if that’s what you’ve done. It’s not as well protected against this sort of problem as online credit card use – as you’ve learned.
I got hit Feb 6 and feb 21. Evryone else is so lucky. My account is with CIBC and they will not reverse the charges as I didn’t catch it is the statement month. I didn’t even get a statement. Guess what bank is not getting a new mortgage with them, is going to lose their Visa profits and will eventually lose my banking business. In the end CIBC will lose more than I will
The bank should have been catching it themselves. it was such an obvious fraud.
The crooks never stole the number from you it was the bank’s payment processor that had poor security.
If it were me I would go to my nearest cibc who I deal with and explain. If they wanted future business they could cough up 150 dollars or go to bat with Visa.
A contact in SK had an American Express $20 Apple charge on their card that they didn’t put there recently. AmEx caught the unusual purchase with software.